


I Could Not Stop For Death

by FlufferNutterButter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlufferNutterButter/pseuds/FlufferNutterButter
Summary: They awaken in the Soul World.





	I Could Not Stop For Death

Eyes opened to an endless titian expanse. One by one, those stolen from Earth by the Soul Stone’s power materialized, each waking up to this new world. Wanda watched as those around her reacted to their new environment. She could feel their reactions; joy, confusion, shock, anger. Yet she felt none of those things. If she felt anything, it was a deep, profound emptiness, one that sank her soul. Fate was cruel to have snatched death away from her not once, but twice, in the face of losing that which she held most dear, which made her whole.

Wanda could not join in the revelations of her peers; it was outside her capabilities to care anymore. Instead, she knelt, folded her hands in front of her, and closed her eyes.

 

Time passed, or it didn’t. Neither mattered to Wanda at this point. On the edge of her consciousness, she could hear people talking, even some talking about her, wanting to approach her, but every time, Bucky urged them away.

A ghost of a smile formed in her mind. Bless Bucky. He, too, knew the virtues of silence and solitude. He knew she was best left undisturbed.

Besides, it wasn’t like she had answers to their questions. Those who dared to try to approach, before being sent away by the Winter Soldier, always had the same things at the forefront of their minds.

_Where are we? Who are you? What are you doing? How do we get out of here? What’s happening?_

If she knew, oh, if she knew, do they think they’d be here still? Do they think she’d still be sitting here?

No.

Instead of saying this, though, she let herself breathe ever deeper, hoping to melt into the background and disappear.

 

Gamora had been there the longest. That was how she knew something was different. Something rippled through the air, tossing her hair ever so slightly, in a world without wind. She and Peter had not left each other’s side since he materialized here, but she suddenly found herself turning on her heel and walking towards the… whatever it was, leaving Peter to sputter behind her before following.

The closer she got, the more the force affected her, and Peter, thankfully, caught on.

“What is that?”

The force pushed at both of them now, not enough to hinder them, but enough not to be ignored. Now, Gamora noticed, though it was hard to discern from the landscape, there were wisps of a scarlet energy accompanying the pulses. And then, finally, in the distance, two figures.

As they got closer, Gamora could discern a few things about these figures. One stood while the other knelt. One moved while the other didn’t. In fact, he moved to cut them off when they got close enough that she could tell that one was a man and one was a woman. One wore red and the other, black.

The wisps were no longer faint. They cut through the air like ribbons of silk, thick and vibrant enough that they demanded to be seen.

They curled and wove and stretched around the man.

Peter spoke first. “Uh,” he pointed first at the space around them, and then at the woman. “She’s glowing.”

“She wants to be left alone.” The tendrils tossed his hair, too.

“Well, I want to be not here, so looks like we’re both going to be disappointed.” Peter stepped forward, but the man put out a very solid arm to stop him. A look of confusion spread across Peter’s face, and he looked to Gamora as if to say “do you see this?”, but she had already ducked around the man and stood before the girl.

She crouched, and softly, she spoke. “What do you feel?”

Silence.

“Look, we need your help.”

The woman’s lips parted. In a whisper, voice hoarse from disuse, she said, “What makes you think I can help? I tried to stop Thanos. I kil…” she choked on the word, “I destroyed the Mind Stone. He just reversed time and took it anyway.”

“You destroyed the Mind Stone?” Peter sounded incredulous. “Do you think you could destroy the other stones?”

She opened her eyes. “I don’t know-”

“Yes you do.” Gamora stood. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing whatever it is you’re doing. So, again: what do you feel?”

Wanda looked up at her. “The fabric of this world.” She took a deep breath. “I… think I can destroy it.”

 

Dr. Stephen Strange looked between the four who had brought him this plan. “Just so we’ve covered our bases… destroying the Soul Stone won’t kill us.”

Wanda nodded. “The Soul Stone is holding us here, like a prison. If we break it…”

“We break out,” Peter finished.

Dr. Strange hummed his assent. “And what’s keeping him from using the Time Stone to reverse that again?”

Wanda squeezed her eyes shut at the image that came, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind. Vision, shattered into pieces, once the stone was destroyed. “Destroying the Soul Stone could do irreparable damage to the gauntlet. Without it, Thanos can’t use their power.”

“That’s right.” Dr. Strange agreed. “He doesn’t know how. But I do.” He clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing. “But Wanda, I need you to understand something. Without the Time Stone, I can’t see the outcome of this particular endeavor…” he stopped and looked at her, “But I don’t need to see the future to know that this could be disastrous for you.”

“I need you to understand something, Doctor,” Wanda countered. “I have nothing left.”

 

“Trying to explain this to everyone will take too long. We need to act,” Gamora said. Without her weapons, she had only her body to fight, but that would be enough. “People are going to start panicking when they feel this place come apart. They might try to stop it.”

Dr. Strange’s hands glowed. “Leave that to us. Wanda,” he turned to the woman behind him, “you just focus on ripping this place apart at the seams.

Wanda nodded, kneeling once more. She stared down at her hands, the scarlet wisps running between her fingers. She took a deep breath before clenching her fists, reaching out with all of her energy, and began to pull.

Everyone else saw red.

Gamora realized, then, how stupid she’d been to think that people would try to stop them. In the torrent of scarlet that surrounded them, like a storm, like a tsunami, she felt paralyzed. Around her, walls rose up of vivid energy, which pushed and pulled at her like an undertow. The tides rose up, higher, higher, until they obscured everything.

It slowed, stopped, and for a moment, they felt weightless.

And then, it all came crashing around them.

Gamora turned, then, to where Wanda once sat, but the woman now floated above them, arms outstretched and head thrown back. Gamora could see as Wanda opened her mouth.

Even above the roar of scarlet power around them, she could hear the scream. Red-tinged tears cut down Wanda’s face as her cry crescendoed.

Gamora tore her gaze away and looked at the ground, fighting back her own tears. The noises clashed and grew to a tremendous peak, and fear pricked at her heart. The power surged around her, through her, and she finally thought, _we’re going to die here._ She did something she hadn’t done in a long time, not since she was a child with her mother at the temple.

Kneeling, and with hands clasped in front of her, Gamora prayed.

 

Eyes opened to blue, green, gray. One by one, those taken by the Soul Stone materialized in the places they had left.

“Mr. Stark!” A boy hurled himself at his mentor.

Two aliens hugged their half-human friend.

A wizard stood and watched.

 

On Earth, a princess and sister rejoiced with her king and brother.

Two old friends embraced.

A raccoon ran to the arms of his tree-based friend.

Over and over, again and again, people reunited and rejoiced, save for one, who stood on the outside, a single question in his mind.

 

_Where’s Wanda?_

 

At the bottom of a cliff, a woman pushed herself up on hands and knees, fingers gripping the rough stone. She looked up, tears streaming down her face.

Kneeling, and with hands clasped in front of her, Gamora cried.

**Author's Note:**

> Who knows if this has a second part.


End file.
